dec05b.indd


Rob Withers 

Something wiki this way comes 
An interactive way of posting, updating, and tracking changes in 
information used by library staff 

So what the heck is wiki?
Wiki is a Hawaiian word for quick. It caught 
the eye of Ward Cunningham, who, in 1995, 
developed scripts for creating Web pages that 
could be created, edited, linked, deleted, or 
renamed without using HTML, software pack­
ages, or fi le transfer—which he named wiki. 
Since that time, wiki clones and wiki­like Web 
content management systems (WCMS) have 
proliferated. As many have become available 
under open source licenses (which enable 
free downloading and use), wiki has begun 
to catch on as a tool for enabling groups of 
people to continuously refine and revise Web 
accessible information.1 

One of the best known applications of 
wiki is the Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia 
consisting of articles containing more than 1.5 
million entries (500,000 in its English­language 
edition) authored or revised by more than 
7,000 people. Other uses include the Wiktion­
ary and other group­edited projects.2 

Despite the emergence of some well­
known products, such as the Wikipedia, the 
library community hasn’t always embraced 
the use of wiki technology. For example, Walt 
Crawford once noted that he had “found the 
mechanisms and content either uninteresting 
or problematic” and since he didn’t have a 
need that cried out to wiki as a solution, he 
hadn’t pursued it.3 The ability of multiple 
people—with or without credentials—to 
add, edit, and delete information has stirred 
up controversy on electronic discussion 
lists, such as Libref­L, and opinions on wiki­
supported encyclopedias, dictionaries, and 
books within the library community continue 
to vary.4 

However, libraries are beginning to em­
brace wiki’s potential to support collabora­
tive authorship and threaded discussions.5 

Wiki is ideal for such activities because it 
empowers people to track many rapidly 
changing types of information, including 
policies and procedures that evolve over 
time, such as hours and locations of library 
service points and related services, techni­
cal glitches, and ways of approaching chal­
lenging assignments. At Miami University, 
information desk staff use a wiki site to share 
and continuously refine information needed 
to perform their work. 

The information desk environment 
The information desk at Miami University, 
located in the largest of the four campus 
libraries, answers directional and basic in­
formational questions, referring people to 
other service points, if needed. It is staffed 
by people who have little opportunity for 
interaction with one another due to the 
location of their workspaces away from the 
desk and to their desk schedule. A mixture of 
full­time staff, graduate students, and student 
employees work at the information desk. 
Paraprofessionals who staff the information 
desk are drawn from a variety of departments, 
including Access Services, Information Ser­
vices, Technical Services, and the Center for 
Information Management. During renovation 
of the library, some of these units have been 

Rob Withers is electronic information services librarian 
at Miami University Libraries, e-mail: rwithers@lib. 
muohio.edu 
© 2005 Rob Withers 

December 2005  775 C&RL News 

http:muohio.edu


temporarily moved to offices outside of the 
building, further limiting interaction. 

Scheduling also impedes communica­
tion. Information desk staff work assigned 
evening shifts and rotating weekend shifts. 
Compensatory time taken for evening and 
weekend shifts further impedes efforts to 
gather all staff in face­to­face meetings. The 
diverse composition of information desk staff 
and the nearly around­the­clock schedule 
makes any type of communication diffi cult, 
especially face­to­face meetings. But with the 
desk answering more than 10,000 questions 
annually, it is important that staff be able to 
share information about frequently repeated 
questions, including those about: 

• diffi cult­to­find answers to assignments; 
• information about hours and locations of 

services (particularly difficult to track as two 
out of four floors of the library are undergo­
ing renovation); and 

• rapidly changing problems involving 
copiers, networking, broken URLs, and net­
work outages. 

Wiki software 
When a candidate for a professional librarian 
position discussed wiki technology during his 
interview, its potential applications to creating 
and maintaining documentation immediately 
became evident to library staff. 

Wiki was set up with MediaWiki, a free 
open source product that can be down­
loaded and used by anyone. MediaWiki is 
a product of the Wikipedia Foundation, a 
nonprofit foundation registered in the State 
of Florida that operates the Wikipedia and a 
number of other sites, such as the Wiction­
ary, WikiBooks, and WikiQuotes.6 Installation 
and configuration took little time, and once 
installed, the software has required minimal 
maintenance from technical staff. 

Benefits of wiki 
Unlike discussion lists or bulletin boards, 
which will display additions or corrections 
as follow­up messages to the original, wiki 
enables those who read the message to make 
additions or corrections to the original fi le. 

Some (particularly within the library commu­
nity) might argue that wiki­based information 
sources are dangerous because individuals 
who may not have credentials are permit­
ted to edit, update, and delete information. 
However, in situations where more than one 
person may know more accurate or up­to­
date information, wiki enables immediate 
correction or updates of errors, eliminating 
bottlenecks that can occur when information 
for 24/7 operations must be reviewed and ap­
proved by persons who work a standard 40­
hour work week. At the same time, it allows 
for the ability for information to be reviewed 
if changes are incomplete or erroneous. 

The information desk wiki 
The information desk wiki includes a section 
with basic information about reference inter­
view techniques, facilities, services and hours, 
renovation updates, and clock­in/clock­out 
procedures for staff. The main portion of the 
wiki is available for any information desk staff 
to post and edit entries about questions that 
may arise and possible solutions to them. 
Current entries include information about a 
heavily used service that crashed frequently 
during final exam week, a business research 
question that can be answered only by using 
a product available on one machine in the 
reference area, and troubleshooting network­
ing problems. 

Any user can edit any entry, adding questions 
or further information, correcting information or 
typos, or removing information. Changes are 
made using a WYSIWIG HTML editing system, 
meaning that little training is required. 

All changes are tracked by the wiki system, 
which can display a history of changes to 
entries. Although the identity of the person 
making changes is not recorded, wiki does 
record the IP number of the computer used to 
make the change as well as the time and date, 
making it possible to pin down an identity 
should it be necessary. 

Conclusion 
At the time of writing, the information desk 
wiki has been operational for almost one 

C&RL News December 2005  776 



year, and has superseded notes left at the 
information desk or e­mails sent to electronic 
discussion lists as a way of sharing informa­
tion. Unlike other forms of disseminating 
information, a wiki­based service: 

• is not confined to one physical space, 
as a log or set of notes might be; 

• does not require a “gatekeeper” to ap­
prove or post information, as a Web site or 
written memoranda might; 

• does not lose information about changes 
made, as a blog might; and 

• does not require people to search for 
multiple pieces of information, one of which 
might supercede another, as postings to a 
electronic discussion list might. 

Unlike notes left at the desk, the informa­
tion in wiki is accessible to people regardless 
of where they are located, provided that they 
have access to the Internet. The wiki system 
also ensures that changes can be tracked if 
necessary, but that only the most current in­
formation is displayed. And best of all, wiki 
can be continuously updated and viewed by 

all staff members; typographical errors, rap­
idly changing availability of online services, 
and new information can all be refl ected in 
entries in a timely fashion. 

Notes 
1. David Mattison, “Quickwiki, Swiki, 

Twiki, Zwiki and the Plone Wars,” Searcher, 
(April 2003): 11:4. Professional Develop­
ment Collection. Ebscohost. 15 Nov 2005, 
search.epnet.com/login.asp?profile=web 
&defaultdb=tfh. 

2. “Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia,” 
Wikipedia n.d.: Available at en.wikipedia. 
org/wiki/Wikipedia. 

3. Mattison. 
4. A quick search on the terms wiki or 

wikipedia in the Libref­L Archives listserv.kent. 
edu/cgi­bin/wa.exe?S1=libref­l will retrieve 
postings that contain both sides of the issue. 

5. Mattison. 
6. Wikipedia Foundation MediaWiki 

Development. n.d. Available at wikipedia. 
sourceforget.net. 

December 2005  777 C&RL News 

http:sourceforget.net